Light infantry refers to strictly foot mobile soldiers which prioritize speed over armaments. As such they tend to reject crew served weapons. This is in contrast with mechanized "heavy" infantry that usually ride into battle aboard infantry fighting vehicles and armored personell carriers.

Anti-material rifles refer to the heavy caliber rifles such as the .50 Barrett and the M1918 T-Gewehr. These weapons are generally capable of piercing light armor of AP Cs and fast attack vehicles such as HMMV Ws aka the (in)famous humvee.

Crew served weapons need a crew. This means that two or three soldiers need to carry equipment that's useless on it's own. As such they aren't carrying extra ammunition for their assault rifles and require precious seconds to set up their weapon. During this time they are vulnerable and need protection from their comrades, adding to the burden of manpower.

Grenade launchers are inaccurate and tend to fire low velocity rounds. If the interior torso armor of a powered exoskeleton is lined with foam rubber then even a high explosive round would need a direct hit in order to kill.

Anti-personell mines like the bouncing betty and claymore would not piercing the kevlar lining covering the joints. Anti-tank mines would certainly anihilate a man in power armor but most current models require a solid tonne of pressure to trigger.

Anti-tank rockets are too slow and clumsy to be effective. Anti-personell rockets aren't powerful enough. More specialized equipment would need to be adapted from existing platforms. Adaptations would need to be done by hand and both the quality and quantity would suffer.

On an unrelated note, I always assumed that diamonds burned like charcoal and for the same reasons. Hmm, with the thermal conductivity and hardness of a diamond, kept in a thin line and braced along all three axises...

edited 21st May '12 7:43:19 AM by Belisaurius

If you're worried about plausibility/functionality, you could always build the armor from superstrong, superlight "smart materials" like carbon nanotube fibers or other theoretical or highly experimental technologies; that would solve the weight/bulk problem and be less likely to seem ridiculous in ten years; that way your armor isn't even metal. The power source could then also be smaller, lighter and more mobile.

You lost me right there. Grenade launchers can hit area targets pretty effectively out to 600-800 meters and can hit a point target at 300.

Then you have the crew served ones. The Mk 19 for instance can hit targets accurately 2000 meters away.

They can hit targets because they rely on their blast radius. All man portable grenade launchers are low velocity weapons in order to not knock the wielder on his ass every time he fires. Lower velocities mean A. more time for wind to play with it, B. the target could move before the round lands and c. arcing trajectories. None of these are conductive to accurate fire. The main reason that they are effective is the fact that the grenades typically don't need a direct hit.

Powered armor changes that. The hard plates and foam rubber padding resists the overpressure from a high explosive round. The the carbide plates and kevlar catches the shrapnel. Only a direct hit from a high explosive round would reliably kill a mobile infantry man and a man in powered armor is fairly difficult to hit.

The Mk 19 is a crew served weapon that requires sand bags be placed on the tripod in order to stabilize the gun As such it is of limited effectiveness in the urban combat powered armor excels at. Finally, the effective range of a Mk 19 is 1500 meters. It's maximum range is 2 Km. Meanwhile, a M82 barret has a range of 1800 meters and is known for it's accuracy.

You could try to put a crew served weapon on a vehicle but that just means that the vehicle would be engaged with anti-armor missiles. Considering the carrying capacity of powered armor, you can expect very many missiles.

So no, grenade launcher just aren't precise enough to be effective against powered armor.

edited 21st May '12 4:00:29 PM by Belisaurius

A 40x46mm grenade is too hefty to be affected by low level winds. Look at it this way, you need a light breeze to throw off a 5.56mm round, a moderate wind to throw off a 7.62mm full sized rifle round, and a gale to even try to throw off a .50 BMG round.

The M-203's grenade is too massive to be affected by typical winds in a combat condition. Sure it may cause deviation of .5 minute of arc but at typical combat ranges (less than 300 meters for many types of terrain) that's nothing.

Any round gets that treatment. From bullets to grenades to artillery shells. Try to keep up.

Bullets arc. Artillery shells arc. Mortars (have very high) arc. All three are capable of hitting a single target dead center at hundreds to sometimes thousands of meters away.

Then what is? You're basically asking the laws of ballistics to go fuck themselves.

edited 21st May '12 3:41:27 PM by MajorTom

Yes, a 40mm round weighs much more than a 5.56 round and takes more energy to move. However, the 40mm round is much larger than a bullet and possibly less dense, depending on what kind of 40 mm round. It's also traveling slower so there is more time to apply energy to it.

Normally, the delay from gun to target is negligible. However, at 240 ms it takes over eight seconds to reach the target at 2 kilometers.

The arc of a bullet is usually negligible and compensation is often less than a degree of arc. Mortars often target small buildings. Artillery, large buildings when they don't use smart munitions.

Accurate, actually scratch that, precise fire requires high velocities and small, dense projectiles.

Maybe I should have used precise over accurate. My bad.

I'm not going to argue wind deflection on various sized rounds, but I do suspect those 40mm grenades are going to have to deal with rather more bullet-drop than most, which is going to reduce the accuracy of the weapons when wielded by un-/partially trained users.

And much more resistant to wind than a bullet is. Same thing with musket and cannonballs. The cannonball is many times larger but is almost impossible to have a shot curve off target by wind (unless you are for some reason fighting with cannonballs in a Category 5 hurricane...).

Irrelevant and worse physics doesn't work that way. Wind doesn't "build up" energy when deflecting ballistic projectiles, it either does it or it doesn't.

You should see the hang times of some artillery. Eight seconds is quick by comparison. That's why in ballistics you aim where you expect the target to be or rely on area effect weapons against soft skinned targets. (Though realistically at extreme ranges like that you're better off with guided munitions gun or missile.)

At 300 meters the 7.62mm round of the Soviet AKM has a bullet drop of nearly 8 inches. For shorter range comparison a .45 ACP cartridge fired from an M1911 will drop several feet in approximately 100 yards.

Really it's only negligible if you are talking 100 meters or less distance shooting with rifle rounds. Even then the drop and windage on the target can make a shot that seems perfectly lined off be a clean sailing miss.

Mortars do everything. Really they are one of the most fearsome types of artillery an infantryman would ever have to face. Seriously, 60mm mortars from WW 2 are more frightening for your line infantryman than 16 inch battleship guns. (Mainly because that sixty mortar can literally drop a round on top of your head whereas battleship guns are "best guess" targeting when engaging small foes like dug in infantry. In WW 2 and historically in general large guns inflicted fewer casualties on enemy infantry than machine guns and mortars.)

Artillery like mortars do everything. You just use them when you want to attack from really far away and have the punch to break heavier targets at the same time.

Not really. The 7.62mm NATO round found in weapons like the M-14 has an accuracy rating far superior to the 5.56mm round found in the M-16 at all ranges the M-16 can engage out to (600 meters). It also has further range and greater mass/density*

Tungsten core 7.62mm rounds exist, they punch through anything short of vehicle armor.

. It also travels slower, both rounds are supersonic out to extreme range yes but 7.62mm is noticeably slower.

Why do you think all 5.56mm marksman arms have been miserable failures in combat while 7.62 ones are all the rage? The Marines don't use 5.56mm marksman guns or sniper rifles. The Army doesn't. (Not anymore anyways) The Russians don't use 5.45mm marksman guns.

Precise fire is irrelevant to the size and composition of the round. Some types of artillery and (smoothbore) tank guns can literally put a round right through the center of a tire (as in the hole where the rim is) at thousands of meters and they are firing often hefty shells with a lot of mass/density and at lower velocities than hypersonic munitions such as KEP's.

Okay, now I know you're using a different model of physics than me.

Seriously, wind affects things over time. Longer travel time, more wind factors in.

Mortars were terrifying because of the blast radius. There was no body armor in WW 2 so a near miss with a fragmentation round was a death sentence. Yes, you could drop a round directly on someone's head but you needed to range you're shots first.

The bullet argument is pointless. The AK-47 uses an 8 gram round, the M-16 uses a 4 gram round while the M-14 uses a 9.4 gram round. The argument goes to the faster round. Furthermore, the 5.56 round was generally considered a sweeping success due to it's tendency to yaw within the body. Thus the AK-74. The reemergence of the M-14 is due to cases where the enemy is outside 600 meters but within the 800 meters that snipers usually operate.

8 inches at 300 meters IS a negligible arc.

Yes, artillery can hit and kill a fortified position from miles away. But that's about it. It's not useful against infantry, just look at Simo Hayha and the paratroopers in Bastogne. It's not useful against armor. Only a direct hit will do and the tanks move around too quickly. It's no longer effective against air power. Even with a VT fuse, heavy AA guns couldn't kill kamikaze planes fast enough. It's been superceeded by missiles in modern navies. So what good is it?

Seriously, you still need to show that you can get direct hits on a man sized target with a high explosive grenade. Not "caught in the blast radius" but direct contact with the grenade to the armor.

Those would just be infantry. They have no special designation. We also don’t have heavy infantry they would be mechanized infantry which could have anything from bog standard infantry to a weapons team in the vehicle. Even the term mechanized infantry is becoming obsolete considering the large degree of mechanization used in modern military to rapidly get troops from area to area. Foot Movement is usually a localized event and very likely they are accompanied by or are accompanying vehicles on the move. Troops sure as shit are not marching all over Afghanistan they are riding in vehicles a lot of the time.

Anti-Material rifles refer to Anti-Material rifles not heavy rifles. The 1918 Gewehr is a purpose designed anti-tank rifle that quickly became obsolete. Anti-Tank Rifles are not Anti-Material rifles but they lead the way to the development of them. AMAT Rifles are purpose designed to engage vehicles, supplies, radios, munitions, and people with reasonable accuracy at various ranges typically with multiple types of ammo. AMAT Rifles have a varying degree of capability of taking on something like an APC with Armour Piercing rounds. The Barret .50cal is not exactly what you would use on an APC. However using something like the NTW-20 a 20mm Anti-Material Rifle is different story. The Russians made 14mm AMAT Rifles that are possibly capable of taking on a wider range of hard targets. The U.S. is working on a 25mm rifle that could likely do that as well.

Crew served guys carry plenty of ammo for their assault rifles and the crew served weapon. The guys who are not carrying weapons and only a few of the parts or spare ammo are carrying their own stock of ammo to provide security. Weapons sections are also typically separate entities from the troops they support. A well drilled heavy weapon crew only needs about 10 seconds to set up and start hammering the targets. Meanwhile their security and the regular grunts are quite happily hammering the enemy with assault rifles, GPM Gs, and grenades. We drill and train for this. They are far from useless. If your using ambush tactics the weapons are already set up just gotta pull the trigger. Also once your set up you don’t even have to break to down the weapon to move it quickly. I have already explained this before. There is nothing infamous about a HMVV, just HMVV drivers.

It is not the speed of the grenade that kills but what it carries that does. Even then there are several varieties of launched grenades that have appreciable velocity.

Grenade launchers are not inaccurate. These are not rifle rifle grenades. They are far more accurate and there are more than a few troops who can nail a reasonably small target at 500yds Think your average window roughly a 3x3foot target, sometimes more. Strictly HE grenades are not common. Blast Fragmentation however is. So are HEDP(High Explosive Dual Purpose) which can plow clean through a full inch of Homogenous Rolled Armour you know the stuff they commonly put on the above mentioned AP Cs. If they can hit that at 500yds a Smuck in power armour can be hit as well.

Betties and Claymores would go clean through Kevlar. They are not slinging around tiny bb’s like out of a bb gun. They are firing the equivalent of large steel buck shot at high velocity which will plow through pretty much every kind of body armour you can wear. Shot guns firing slugs can plow through Kevlar. That is just a shotgun cartridge. Bouncing betties are using a high explosive, claymores are using plastic explosive and can damage light armoured vehicles. Kevlar is not going to save the joints from a blast or shot from a Claymore , the betty is just as likely to tear it up.

Hey ever hear of command detonated mines? The claymore is one of those we also have Anti-tank varieties. We also have nice little weapons called SLAM. Selective Light Attack Munition which can set it self off without worrying about weight and it fires a Explosively formed penetrator. The kicker even the insurgents in the sandbox figured out how to make a homebrew version of this with an automatic garage door opener. Nifty huh. Oh and the IED’s you know the weapon that has caused the bulk of our casualties is frequently command detonated.

Here is something else for you. Did you know that shrapnel is categorized by size? We have small shrapnel typically what you get from bullet fragments and hand grenades and launched grenades. Medium shrapnel some of the launched grenades have this as do mortars, auto-cannon caliber shells etc. Then we have large shrapnel from larger mortars and artillery. They also come in standard and armor piercing flavours. Yes armor piercing shrapnel. Nasty stuff.

Medium shrapnel is more effective against a wider range of targets and cover if it is armor piercing stand by for some gooey messes.

Rocket launchers are meant to be fired on point targets. You don’t have to start worrying about accuracy until you get out quite a distance. Weapons like the LAW and SMAW are capable of nailing point targets and fire AP/Frag rounds. We also have the SRAW which has limited inertial guidance. The SMAW has a wider range of munitions from bunker busters, anti-armor, to Fuel Air Explosive. Unless your armor on the Power Armor is impressively thick they only have to get close to turn the person inside into pressure killed meat. They pack quite a bit of power in the rockets. RPG’s are just as nasty and come in a variety of ammo types.

The joints and externally mounted gear will be the first stuff get torn up on the power armor even from Frag rounds.

How did we go from the common average of combat of 300yds to 1000yds to 2 kilometer ranges? We suddenly applying arbitrary unmentioned scenarios or the common occurrence?

Dodging the launched grenade that is great, that makes me laugh. 250f/t per second is still faster then humans can move. Didn’t know humans could suddenly dodge bullets. That is what you are going to have to learn to do to dodge grenades fired from a launcher. Unless you looking right at the round chances are very good you won’t even know it is there till it hits. Whenever you encounter enemy infantry you can expect some sort of machine gun, possibly heavy weapons, and a variety of grenades. Oh there are also still hand thrown anti-armor grenades that are reasonably effective at close ranges.

To really put the point home Assault Rifles like AK's and M-16s can fire AP ammo as well. Power Armour is not going to impervious it is gong to have plenty of soft spots and it is pretty good bet assault rifle rounds will be able to go through those soft spots and do some appreciable damage.

Velocity can help with accuracy but what is most imporant is the skill of the shooter. I can have the most accurate weapon in the world in my hands but ultimately my skill level with using said weapon is going to determine how accurate it is. Which is why militaries spend a lot of time training shooting their weapons and practicing combat in a variety of situations. Low velocity weapons can be used accurately it only takes practice. We have laser guided bullets now which fire at a lower velocity then other rifles but have much higher point target accuracy.

Just like Swords in modern combat Power Armor is pretty much rule of cool. For now.

The two biggest limits for power armour right now is materials we can build the frame and armour out of and power sources to power the armour.

On carbon materials. They are reasonably strong but it only takes one solid hit to make it shatter. Nano-tube cloth or even that nano-tube resin might be the answer. Or other similar materials.

On the diamond part. You can make a diamond burn but you would need a lot of heat and/or pressure to do it. I think some folks are confusing Cubitzirconium (Imitation diamonds) and Diamonds. The Zirconium part of that compound is made into meshes or "sponges" that is used in incendiaries. For example the Raufous HEAPI round has zirconium incendiary material in it.

Actually, light infantry is still around here and there, in the form of mountain infantry.

If you are thirty meters away it does that. 5.56mm ammunition has been terrible in Afghanistan. There have been numerous accounts and captures where the enemy was hit repeatedly by 5.56mm fire and was never incapacitated or killed.

Then there's the range issue. Routinely hadjis with century old bolt action rifles could outrange and outgun troops carrying M-16s. In some cases like with M-4s the enemy could not be touched by line riflemen because the M-4 could not reach the bolt action rifle by hundreds of meters. (Were the Taliban better marksmen with those rifles we'd have had 10, 000+ KIA so far from Afghanistan alone.) That's how ineffective the round is. Besides if 5.56mm ammunition were perfect the military would never have tried improving it with the M855A1 version of the round.

On the other hand, the typical middle eastern insurgent runs around with an AK-47. Only a specialist runs around with a bolt action like a red army surplus Mosin Nagant. Those specialized snipers are already being countered by M40 equiped marine and army snipers.

Also, you missed my point. The 7.62x39 and the 7.62mm NATO both have the same diameter. Despite this, the NATO round is far more accurate due to it's weight and velocity.

Not in Afghanistan. Iraq maybe. In Afghanistan century old rifles are surprisingly common. (Lee-Enfield types like the WW 2-era No. 4 especially.) They are effectively substitute standard enemy weapons.

And yet there you were arguing that smaller, higher velocity rounds are more accurate.

edited 22nd May '12 4:56:55 AM by MajorTom

Major Tom, you're contradicting you're self now.

First, you argue that the 5.56mm round is a failure. Now you argue that the 7.62 NATO isn't more accurate than the 7.62x39mm despite having the same diameter and roughly the same weight.

Command detonated mines need someone to detonate them. This is fine if you're laying an ambush but if you're the one being ambushed then those mines are just dead weight.

I really don't believe that the steel balls from a claymore mine can pierce kevlar at anything farther than three feet. There is a reason that we don't use solid steel ammunition after all.

Now I want you to see this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgDcT4TvimQ At 1:30 mark you see grenades detonating both far from the cross hairs and in a loose grouping.

Now, do you mind citing you're ideas or do we have to ramble on and on.

You know what the fun thing is about command detonated mines like the Claymore. The command can be relayed by trip wires and other more complex detection/detonation mechanisms. Far from dead weight. Other mines don't need a command just someone stepping on them. For the record Ambushes are a common military tactic. Retreating forces can also quickly set up a claymore blow it to induce casualties and while the enemy is recovering continue to retreat. Command detonated mines are useful in more then just ambush. It is how you use the gear.

On the claymore. What part of damage Light Armored Vehicle did you not get? Kevlar is not going to stop a solid steel ball bearing unless you are a fair distance from the point of detonation. Better yet what part of steel balls propelled by plastic explosive didn't you get? Here is the velocity of hunks of steel. 3, 995 ft/s (1, 200 m/s). Kevlar is not stopping those.

Bel: Your still way out in the weeds. One that is a MK-19. Two that is at 1000yds. See the beginning of the vid. Three that is AUTOMATIC Grenade Launcher. It fires 375 grenades a minute. You saturate the target. Four Average combat range is between 300-1000yds that weapon is entirely effective. You get closer it is going to get more accurate. Also watching the vid there are multiple hits at the cross hairs at 1000yds. That is accuracy. Plus that is far from being the only Automatic Grenade launcher or multi-shot grenade launcher out there. My previous points still stand.

While the Claymore can use a trip cord, setting up the trip cord takes time and requires that the enemy enters it's range. As such, landmines are useless when assaulting a position and can be a hazard to your own men if they aren't thinking. Pursuit is an unreliable scenario as the would-be pursuers may just ignore the retreating forces in favor of pressing on to a more important objective.

I openly acknowledge that ambushes are a well honored military tactic. However, you can't rely on being the ambusher every time. Sometimes you're the ambushee. Seeing as powered exoskeletons handle terrain just as well as any infantryman and the wearer is more energetic and thus more aware from not having to haul a 60+ pound of gear around; I'd say that it's more likely that the powered armored infantry would be in a better position to ambush than to be ambushed.

I'll work under the assumption that the claymore can pierce kevlar under protest. The increased carrying capacity of powered armor means that the wearer can afford better coverage with ceramic strike plates. The silicon or boron carbide ballistic plates have a moh's hardness of 9.5. Modern steel has a Moh's hardness of 4. While it's entirely possible to fracture the ballistic plate, the impact would badly deform the steel ball bearing, possibly even fracturing it. The kevlar lining would catch the offending projectile easily after that.

Finally, the fact that the Mk19 is designed for saturation fire, rather than precision fire, is my point. It can't rely on mearly saturating the general area of the target because A. fragmentation wouldn't reliably kill or even wound and B. overpressure would be mostly ineffective. 1000 yards is a relevant distance as we've discussed the practicality of equipping power armor with M60 machine guns with an effective range of 1100 yards and have a much higher rate of fire.

So, let's run some scenarios (my favorite cereal, Scenarios).

First, the power armor squad is ambushed. Claymores go off, grenades drop in, and assault rifles spew 5.56mm and/or 7.62mm rounds. The claymores are going to crack some armored plates, the grenades are going to get some kills but all in all, the powered armored squad are still combat effective. Now, they bring their own weapons into play. Laying prone with the tripod deployed the M60s fire 500-650 rounds per minute each. More than the Mk 19's maximum fire rate and far more than it's practical fire rate. Supporting infantry engage with their M203s and Milkor MG Ls but they can't engage at more than 400 meters and can't close without being cut down by fully automatic fire.

Second, the armored infantry is doing the ambushing. All vehicles are engaged with massed ATGM missile strikes. IF Vs like the M2 Bradley and MB Ts like the M1 Abrams take the worst of the attack. Meanwhile, anyone not holding a missile launcher is blazing away with an M60 spewing 7.62 NATO into HMMV Ws and anyone who had the sense to get out of the big metal target. Countermeasures would be depleted or spoofed by successive waves of missiles. Most man-portable weapons wouldn't have the range, armor piercing, or rate of fire to gain any measure of fire superiority and as such the ambushed forces would be pinned down or eliminated in short order. It is at this point that the power armored infantry can close in with what remains of their foe and confirm either the death or capture of everyone in the unit.

Third, the infantry company just runs into the powered armor squad. M60s are set up faster than the Mk 19s. IF Vs are engaged by multiple ATG Ms, mostly javelins with some SRA Ws mix in. Crew served weapons are either knock out with their vehicles or can't be set up fast enough before being suppressed by light machine gun fire. The only thing the mobile infantry have to worry about are the IF Vs when the 25mm chain gun comes into play before the javelins take it out and any MB Ts beyond the 2500 meter mark.

Here is the problem with scenarios. You can make them say whatever you want. The ambushers use SLA Ms, a half dozen claymores or similar devices, are using heavy machine guns firing HEAPI or SLAP ammo, incendiaries, are using armour piercing ammunition, have 4 rocket launchers with AP or thermobaric warheads, have automatic grenade launchers in defelade positions pouring on the power before the smoke even clears, are using any variety of assorted weapons and can just as easily cream the the power armour guys.

There is no protesting high velocity steel through kevlar only holes. I would like to point out Assault Rifles you know firing lead with copper jacket go rather nicely through kevlar class 3 vests. What makes you think Kevlar is going to stop a high velocity hunk of solid steel by it self? The only thing that stops rifle bullets are those ballistic strike plates. Even then they can only take so many hits before they are just dead weight. Explosions and direct hits from assault rifles and large caliber weapons will do no favors to the strike plates and shock waves will just kindly waltz right through it and do the nasty stuff they do to guts.

Ceramic plates may stop the one or two pellets but each claymore is firing about 700 of those steel bearings. At max effective range for the claymore the armours will receive some damage but what is stopping the enemy from driving them via fire power or ambush into best effective range and then giving them a nasty surprise. Or setting up the ambush in a better position where the enemy has to channel through an area that forces them into the ideal engagement envelope. God help anyone who gets further inside that blast area.

If an enemy is pursuing you they usually have a good reason to and you give them a good reason to back off like a cloud of explosively driven steel ball bearings, any number of hastily dropped pursuit deterrents, or hasty ambushes. Also no one said anything about using claymores in the assault I have no idea where you got that bit. There are some creative ways you could possibly use a claymore for the assault but there are much better suited tools at hand.

The max effective range for an m-60 isn't point targets either. It is area targets. Once you get 500yds and out your mostly aiming at an area not a point target. Unless your using various scoped weapons. Which by the way our common infantry have lots of optics on their GPMGs, heavy weapons, and assault rifles. Oh look the basic effective range for the MK-19 is 1, 500yds Max Effective Range is 2, 212yds. That is 400yds advantage on effective range without even touching max effective range. Hmm looks like they out range the M-60's on both counts and with more fire power easily.

A 60 lb pack is what you take on hike for fun. If that is all those guys are hauling they will have plenty of energy.

edited 22nd May '12 2:28:07 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Alright, those thermobaric rockets? Max range 500 meters. The Soviet version is worse. Single shot so the M60s would cut them down while they're lining up a shot. AP? useless unless you're precognitive. Automatic grenade launchers? Aren't accurate enough for direct hits and can't kill without one.

Heavy machine guns? Maybe, but you've got to be out of range or you'll just get suppressed by any given M60.

Assault rifle through kevlar? Duh, the assault rifle round is both pointed and denser than the steel ball bearing.Copper is relatively soft so it acts like a lubricant in order to pierce the weave.

Overpressure? Protect the lungs by padding the torso with foam rubber. Same way they make bomb suits. Other organs have roughly the same density so they aren't at risk.

Driving powered armored infantry into a kill zone would require nothing less than multiple tanks with active missile defenses, artillery bombardment, or saturation bombing from high altitude.

Setting up an ideal ambush may require precognition.

You also assume that powered armor would be any use pursuing a target when they are no more mobile than any other infantry. They'd have to run non-stop for hours in order for the advantages to pile up. No, vehicles or air power would be used in any case where pursuit is necessary. Anything else would be suicide.

Yes, ceramic plates can shatter. This is why they are 4 ply at minimum. I suspect that powered armor may carry 8 ply or more.

Being a machine gun, the M60 compensates for it's lack of point accuracy at range with volume of fire. Having a higher rate of fire, the M60 can afford to miss repeatedly.

Furthermore, I've already shown than the Mk 19 is only area accurate at 1000 meters. Area accuracy would not be sufficient at 60 rounds a minute. Not against power armor anyway. At 2 Km, it's likely that the Mk19 would be useless.

If carrying 60 lbs leaves you with plenty of energy, carrying zero pounds would leave you with gratuitous amounts of energy.

Or simply being smart enough to put 2 and 2 together to equal 4.

Ambushes happen all the fucking time ideal or otherwise. (There is no "ideal" ambush because the enemy will always try to adapt to fighting one off. If your ambush is working too well, it's possible you're the one falling into a trap.) This is an era of satellite surveillance and tracking in real time, unmanned aerial vehicles being able to see the battlefield in thermal, night-vision and full color imaging, and sensor/radar systems able to zero in on where a shot came from.

Power armor won't change that. Besides nobody's going to use an RPG in suppressive fire, that's not its purpose. (An AGS-30 or Mk-19 maybe but not an RPG-7 or AT-4 or SMAW.) People are going to use it in the anti-tank role, the tank in question being your buffoons in bulky power armor. There is no detection system for unguided munitions that haven't been yet fired outside of being lucky and seeing the motherfucker about to crack your shell open with your own eyes.

What are they going to saturate the target area with fire at the long end of the range or engage at point target range? Saturation fire can work but if your firing on an enemy in entrenched position the effectiveness of that fire dwindles. At point target range they can be nailed. The power armour is not perfect and can and will be hit. If you expect to come under fire hold your fire and lure the enemy in then engage. Pretty basic tactics.

Quite the BS gem you dropped there. It is called training and aiming does not require precog. The power armours are not going to be something out of a Japanese anime or Sci-fi flick, they are more likely going to move just like a grunt if they are lucky. You can hit them. Not mention Armor Piercing rounds from anything from an assault rifle to machine gun.

Maybe you need to go watch that video again multiple hits at the crosshair. The shooter stops and adjusts something and the area of impact expands wash rinse repeat. You can also tell something gets changed by the change in accuracy from the first shots and how crosshair returns to the aimed position. The later portions of the vid looks like turned off whatever was helping him aim or was doing something other then trying to directly hit the target. They are more then accurate enough to get a direct hit and yes they can kill without a direct hit. Either the quipment gets banged up and stops working or the driver dies from being too close to a blast. When I can pour 300 grenades a minute at 1500yds and out they are more then enough to do the job.

[[aquotebloock]]Heavy machine guns? Maybe, but you've got to be out of range or you'll just get suppressed by any given M60.[[/quoteblock]] Those guys in armour are going to be just vulnerable to suppression and direct fire. They can be in range and in entrneched or firing from a position of cover. Unlike the m60 most heavy machine guns can plow through all but the heaviest of cover. If the M-60s are in range so are the heavy machine guns. Part of Murphies law. If the enemy is in range so are you.

Got this wrong too. Both copper and lead are very soft and deform easily. The reason they go through the vest is they concentrate all their energy on one point over comign the tensile strength of the kevlar fibers or forcing them aside. The kevlar can't handle the force. The bullets can also break apart as they pass through and send fragments into the guy wearing the armor. You stop that by using the SAPI plates to suck energy out of the bullet and break it up. In doing so the plate itself is damaged. Lubricant really. Whoever told you that is way off base and has grossly misinformed you. You thinking of teflon coated bullets? That is the only kind of bullet that I know of that has any kind of "lubricant" on it.

While the ball bearings are not pointy they are dense, hard, and have a high velocity. Go see how high that velocity is again.

Do you have any idea how bulky those suits are and how ill suited they are to rapid movement? The guys in bomb suits end up dieing from over pressure all the time. There is a reason EOD has crappy life expectancy. Your going to try and cram a guy into a bomb suit into another suit. I shouldn't have to explain why this a bad idea. Over pressure works on more then the lungs. It works on the eyes, sinus cavities, that nice fluid filled brain case, the brain, it can stop your heart, disrupt your nervous system, and can burst blood vessels and rupture organs. Foam rubber is going to be limited in what it can absorb. Grenades depending on how close the blast is. Rocket blasts your pushing your luck.

Wrong again. They are not walking tanks, invincible, or immune to weapons of infantry. Give them a reason to seek cover rather then stand around like dummies and get shot up. Pretty easy to do. Conentrated fire on their position. Oh look they are going to be smart and move out of the line of fire. Gee that was easy. You know following basic tactics. Drive them into cover. Only you have been a smart monkey and booby trapped all the good cover ahead of time. You know like the Insurgents started doing in Afghanistan. You don't need tanks. Get an Armored Humvee with a remote weapon station and a heavy machine gun. Please stay in the open where I can shoot you is not a good tactic to try. I hope they never try such a tactic with Light armoured vehicles which can pack anything from 25mm Automatic Cannon to 105mm Gun Systems. Please try and sit in the open and fight those. From infantry to tanks there are quite a few reasons for the Power armour guys to move to a new position or become hamburger.

Funny everyone uses ambushes without it. In short bs. You just have to have decent idea of line of travel and set up along it. Pretty simple and a very tried and true tactic. Then you have hasty ambushes which instead of a detailed plan you move quickly into position and attack. Pretty easy to do.

Infantry can pursue other infantry happens all the time go pick up some history books. If you have a vehicle and your chasing someone you can bet your ass someone is likely going to use a vehicle. Pretty simple the vehicle is faster then infantry on foot and frequently armed with heavier weapons. If common infantry can make guys in power armour retreat they can pursue and destroy as well again they are not invincible. Just like any other unit be careful and don't get caught in one of those hasty ambushes I mentioned earlier.

They are more likely to be comprable to what infantry already uses. You start making the armour more dense you start cranking up weight. This is one of the biggest limiters of armour right now.

The Mk-19 Being a machine gun which can hit targets at 1500 yds can make short bursts and pick you off or just cover your general area with suppressive and lethal heavy weapons fire. Same goes for GPMG's, and other heavy machine guns. M-240 with optical scope mount (very common now) has an effective range comprable to the M-60. The M-2 .50cal has range comprable to the Mk-19. .50 caliber HMG's are known to be pretty accurate. A .50 cal in single shot mod with jerry rigged scope mount was used to make a kill at over a mile by Carlose Hathcock. Optical site mounts are pretty common on .50cals these days. With the new light weight model likely to be entering service soon they will have a total weight comparable to the M-60/E4

Couple things, you ignored the parts of the video where it was point accurate repeatedly and every time the shooter adjusted the weapon system the accuracy widened. Two. It is not 60 rounds a minute the MK-19 fires at 300 rds a minute. More then enough.

[[qutoeblock]]If carrying 60 lbs leaves you with plenty of energy, carrying zero pounds would leave you with gratuitous amounts of energy. [[/quoteblock]]

And how you going to reach zero when your busy trying tack all this extra junk onto your power armour? It will not eliminate weight your carrying. your still hauling around some of the weight of all the gear, the power armour is just reducing the overall felt weight not eliminating it.

The guy in power armour might have around 200lbs of gear but is effectively carrying only 60lbs of gear. The more crap you strap onto that weight bearing frame the less weight it can take off the soldier.

So when you go around trying to strap all this armour throw guys into stiff bomb suits inside it (more weight by the way) you have to start adding in climate control unless you want a walking heat causualty which will take them out of the fight just as effectively as getting a round through a soft spot. You can't realistically encase the entire soldier in solid armour plates that would reduce their ability to move and would again add weight.

The M-60 is not a magical death machine. The infantry we have carry weapons just as good or better as well as a host of other weapons. There is nothing overtly special about it. Even better we can give the same weapon to the regular infantry and have them use AP ammo. Have heavy machine guns, give them API ammo and turn the power armour troops into burning meat in a can. The Heavy machine guns have better range and stopping power then the M-60s. The power armour guys have to get inside the firing range of the heavy machine guns before they can even use the M-60. Not a fun prospect if your facing an entrenched enemy.

Realistically. Armour like we use now the soft armour with plates to protect the chest, back, sides, neck, part of the lower torsoe arms and legs. The substance you like to quote is already in use in the ballistic plates. We are already familiar with it's limitations. The rest of the weight will be all the gear they would have to normally carry. You get some improved protection, mobility, and improved carrying capacity. If we can get the weight, cost, power consumption, and improve durability we can tack on the various future soldier systems with the armour and then we can start seeing a more impressive soldier.

What is going to boil down to is power armour is going to very similar to regular infantry. Equally vulnerable.

Tom; The SMAW us multi-role. As is the RPG. You can use them for suppression but are not as effective as machine guns.

edited 22nd May '12 6:47:25 PM by TuefelHundenIV

So let me get this straight. Power armor is bad because it can't survive being ambushed by men in cameoflaged and fortified positions who are equipped with rocket launchers, automatic grenade launchers, heavy machine guns, have ideal range on their foes, land mines in ideal locations, and have managed to draw their enemy into ground of their choosing that apparently deprives them of all cover.

...you know, under these circumstances and entire tank company with infantry support would be hard pressed to survive. Not bad for something that's about 30k a piece.

You don't need that. Just far enough you can keep on them and not jerk the gun around wildly. (You'd be surprised how short that can be in many scenarios.

Isn't that a tad useless? That 83mm round on the SMAW is better used for blowing their cover away. Maybe you use one deliberate miss to get an enemy off the street into a pre-zeroed mortar barrage or over onto an IED but suppress them in the same way you use a 249?

They are not bad but they are far from the paragons of mighty military machines you make them out to be. They would be a far cry from how they are depicted in fiction. You don't even have to use the assortment of heavy weapons to turn a power armour guy into cold body in suit.

They would be closer to regular infantry they may have better protection in general and carry more, they may have improved fire power in general ie possible increased use of heavy weapons, if you can get something like future soldier on them they could have excellent communication and navigation. You would see an improvement in infantry overall but they are not going to be nigh unstoppable killing machines. Fight them like they are squishier infantry and you will likely have a increased survival rate.

Tom: Like I said you could but there are better uses for them. The RPG firing shrapnel rounds at troops in the open can force them into whatever cover is handy, same for a SMAW. It is more effective though to force them into cover with weapons other then rocket launchers. Then engage them in cover with the rocket launchers. You know the more sane option.

True. But that kinda invalidates the whole using it as a suppressive weapon thingy. Besides you can have your riflemen in that case just fire three rounds to make the enemy move to cover then engage with the SMAW or RPG. (Though with frag/thermobaric rounds those are better used killing the enemy than suppressing him. The thermobaric RPG-7 warhead for instance can collapse a small house in one shot.)

edited 22nd May '12 7:46:27 PM by MajorTom